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It’s the (sustainable) economy, stupid!

For decades, the policy community has been deeply divided over some basic questions about economic development. Forestry, mining, fishing, oil and gas—to name only a few sectors—have been at war with the environmental movement over what is or is not allowable in a resource-intensive economy. Such disagreements can be paralyzing, as we see with the debates over pipelines and fracking.

This culture of conflict is a legacy of the old industrial era, a time when the economy and the environment were seen as distinct policy fields. That legacy must be replaced with a culture of collaboration and innovation.

How I Gave Up Alternating Current

With no fridge, no dishes, no microwave, no oven, no range, no dishwasher, no utensils, no pests, no cleaning products nor dirty rags, my life is considerably simpler, lighter and cleaner than before. I think it was a bit presumptuous for the architect to assume I wanted a kitchen with my apartment and make me pay for it. My home is a place of peace. I don’t want to live with red hot heating elements and razor sharp knives. That sounds like a torture chamber. However, it’s not a total loss. I was able to use the cabinets to store part of my book collection.

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I only put in about 15 minutes of guitar practice tonight. I just did what the instructor from my Udemy curse calls chord pushups. You play the chord, take your fingers of the guitar, flex them out, then put them back on the guitar and play the chord again.

The idea, I think, is to develop the muscle memory so you can move between chords faster. It’s probably not bad for building strength in your fingers either.

I’m getting callouses on three of my fingers, which is helping.

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I did the first run on a couch to 5k program this morning. I’ve done this one a few times, as this is my 3rd or 4th time starting this program. I think I completed it once? Anyway, my lower legs are sore, but it was a good run.

I got in a quick walk after work too, since I had to pick up Cohen from my mum’s house.

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The day I ordered pizza that ‘doesn’t exist’

“What do you mean, it doesn’t exist?” I reply, oblivious to her hostility, since she’s quite aggressive at the best of times. “I’d just like a marinara but with some mozzarella on top.” Unwittingly I make matters worse by miming her mozzarella-sprinkling action.

“La marinara is a pizza rossa,” she states frostily. “A pizza rossa is made with tomato and without mozzarella. So you can’t have a marinara with mozzarella because there’s no such thing.”

Drinking Soylent With The Last Of The California War Boys

Seasteading’s been and gone for the second (third?) time, the secession and Six-State-California guys have been and gone. It is that time in the cycle where the Libertarian App Future Brothers start living off the grid, buying guns and getting good and weird out there alone in the dark. I wonder how we’ll look back at this whole period of the last five or ten years. At how the digital gold rush and the strange pressures of a new, yet accelerated, period of cultural invention cooked a whole new set of mental wounds out of the people swept up in it.

A chat with Black Hat’s unconventional keynote speaker

I’m talking about the internet revolution. We early adopters had, have, such hopes and dreams for technology — leveling the playing field, fostering new ideas and new political power, opening the world up to new communities of people, liberating ourselves from some of the dangers of bad government. Obviously, security is a building block for this future. But in so many ways we’re falling short of this vision: surveillance, spyware, censorship, increasingly catastrophic data breaches. This revolution is middle aged, and unless we do something, the next stage promises to be gray, grizzled and sad.

The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here

Hansen’s new study also shows how complicated and unpredictable climate change can be. Even as global ocean temperatures rise to their highest levels in recorded history, some parts of the ocean, near where ice is melting exceptionally fast, are actually cooling, slowing ocean circulation currents and sending weather patterns into a frenzy. Sure enough, a persistently cold patch of ocean is starting to show up just south of Greenland, exactly where previous experimental predictions of a sudden surge of freshwater from melting ice expected it to be. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist, recently said of the unexpectedly sudden Atlantic slowdown, “This is yet another example of where observations suggest that climate model predictions may be too conservative when it comes to the pace at which certain aspects of climate change are proceeding.”

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Advice for People in Their Early 20s

The second thing I would say is this: No one has the answers. No one knows the best path you should take. No one has figured out the ultimate answer to your problem of fearing the future. The best of us just fake it and make it look like we know what we’re doing. We don’t. We’re still trying to figure it out too, and the honest truth is, most of us are either scared shitless or faking it, even to ourselves.

Greek the Salad

On the other hand, there is no such thing as authentic food. The concept requires that all cuisines from primarily non-immigrant countries be thought of as static and unchanging, which of course they are not. Dishes are created all the time, even in countries with much longer culinary histories than ours. Existing dishes are modified. New influences change the way people eat. Regional specialties overlap, mingle with each other.

Are plants intelligent? New book says yes

Many plants will even warn others of their species when danger is near. If attacked by an insect, a plant will send a chemical signal to their fellows as if to say, “hey, I’m being eaten – so prepare your defences.” Researchers have even discovered that plants recognize their close kin, reacting differently to plants from the same parent as those from a different parent.